Leavitt Details Trump's Phone Call With Putin Following White House Summit With Zelensky, EU Leaders

Forbes Breaking News

At her press briefing, Karoline Leavitt spoke about President Trump's efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine War.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, everybody. How are you? Good to see all of you.

00:08What we've witnessed President Trump accomplish over the last few days has been nothing short of

00:12remarkable. We are now three and a half years into the war between Russia and Ukraine,

00:18a brutal conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of Russian

00:22and Ukrainian lives and cost trillions of dollars. The weakness and incompetence of

00:27Joe Biden foolishly allowed the killing to start in the first place.

00:32Until President Trump returned to office in January, the bloody and broken Biden

00:36status quo was to endlessly force American taxpayers to fund Ukraine no matter the cost,

00:42no matter how long it takes, and no matter how many lives were lost.

00:46There is no denying that Biden's America last foreign policy moved the world further away from

00:52peace. President Trump rejected that failed approach and instead, over the last seven

00:57months, has relentlessly pursued peace throughout his second term. And thanks to President Trump's

01:03efforts, we finally have movement after years of deadly gridlock. On Friday, as you all know,

01:09many of you were there, President Trump hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage,

01:13Alaska for a bilateral meeting. This was the first time President Putin has been to the United States

01:19since 2015, and the first time he has met with an American president in years. President Putin

01:25publicly confirmed what President Trump has said all along. The war between Russia and Ukraine never

01:32would have started in the first place if President Trump were in office. This was always obvious to any

01:38person with a shred of common sense. Just look at what took place during the last four administrations.

01:45Under George W. Bush, Russia invaded Georgia. Under Barack Obama, Russia took Crimea. Under Joe Biden,

01:52Russia invaded Ukraine. But under President Trump, Russia did not invade nor take anything. President

01:59Trump is the only president this century, Republican or Democrat, who has held Russia in check and

02:04ensured peace in Europe. That's because Russia has always greatly respected President Trump and his

02:10peace-through-strength foreign policy approach. But overall, the bilateral talks in Alaska were very

02:16productive, and multiple key points were agreed to between the two leaders that truly opened up the

02:21door for phase two discussions, which took place yesterday here at the White House within 48 hours of

02:27that meeting in Anchorage, I may add. As you all know, there were many European leaders here, as well as

02:33Ukrainian President Zelensky. They all traveled here to meet with President Trump to maintain the momentum and work

02:40toward a lasting peace. Across the board, every leader credited President Trump for his decisive leadership

02:46that has reignited the dialogue in hopes of finally bringing this war to a peaceful conclusion. Two quotes in

02:53particular capture the progress that was made and the optimism moving forward. Finnish President Alexander Stubbs said,

03:00I think in the past two weeks, we've probably had more progress in ending this war than we have had in the past two and

03:06three and a half years. Again, that is the president of Finland, a country that shares a border with

03:12Russia. That's what we call the President Trump effect. NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta also summed it up

03:19well. Without President Trump, this deadlock with Putin would not have been broken. He is the only one who

03:25could do this. Following the encouraging conversations yesterday, President Trump spoke with President Putin by

03:30phone, and he agreed to begin the next phase of the peace process, a meeting between President Putin and

03:36President Zelensky, which would be followed, if necessary, by a trilateral meeting between President

03:42Putin, President Zelensky and President Trump. As the president said, Vice President Vance, Secretary Rubio

03:49and Special Envoy Witkoff will continue to coordinate with Russia and Ukraine to make this happen as soon as

03:54possible. It's very important to remember that before President Trump's landslide victory last November,

04:00there was no end in sight to this bloodshed. Now there may finally be light at the end of the tunnel

04:06and an opportunity for lasting peace. That's because President Trump is the peace president and American

04:11leadership is back on the world stage. It should not be lost on anyone in this room that world leaders

04:18are coming right here to Washington DC for help. While previous presidents have traveled halfway around the

04:24world to apologize for America, President Trump stands up for America and he has firmly restored

04:30America's status as the undisputed leader of the free world. However, one thing that has absolutely

04:37not changed is the media's negative and downright false coverage of President Trump and his foreign

04:43policy accomplishments. From the beginning of this entire process, much of the left-wing media has been

04:48actively rooting against the President of the United States in the pursuit of peace. Initially, the

04:54media ridiculously claimed that President Trump was somehow beholden to Russia for even agreeing to

05:00have a face-to-face discussion with President Putin inside of the United States. The media said President

05:06Trump was making a grave mistake by, quote, legitimizing Putin. They were aghast that President Trump would

05:11treat another world leader like a world leader. The media relentlessly attacked President Trump and

05:17claimed he suffered a, quote, major defeat for not immediately emerging with a final agreement,

05:22even though he said heading into that meeting this was a meeting to listen and to understand how to move

05:28the ball forward. All weekend, following those historic U.S.-Russia bilateral talks, we listened to

05:33clueless pundits on television trying but failing to claim that the President had failed. The so-called

05:40experts in the foreign policy establishment whose record is nothing but endless wars,

05:45trillions of wasted taxpayer dollars, and dead Americans have the nerve to try and lecture

05:50President Trump who has solved seven global conflicts in seven months about peace. It was,

05:55this is the same President, by the way, who brokered the Abraham Accords in his first term

06:00on top of more than half a dozen other peace deals this year alone, as I just said. We also saw

06:05yesterday the President of Ukraine and all of the other major leaders of Europe fly across the Atlantic

06:10Ocean to meet President Trump at the White House because of the progress that was made and that,

06:15if you ask the media, failed meeting, but it was not. It was highly productive and it was successful.

06:21This is why Americans' trust in the mass media is at the lowest point in more than five decades.

06:26Diplomacy is a delicate process, and instead of reporting the facts about what is happening here at

06:31this White House and what is happening between this President and other leaders around the world,

06:35many outlets in this room continue to try to actively undermine the President and sabotage

06:41the efforts towards peace. That is why I felt the need to .

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